25. Harper #2
He undresses without ceremony and returns to the bed.
The mattress dips under his weight as he settles over me, careful with how he places his knees and elbows.
I feel the heat of his bare skin against mine for the first time tonight.
He does not rush to enter me. Instead, he stays braced above me, one hand sliding down between us so he can feel how ready I already am.
“Still okay?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He guides himself to me and pushes in slowly.
The stretch is familiar and different at the same time.
My body accepts him in a long, continuous slide until he is fully seated.
He stays there, deep and still, forehead resting lightly against mine.
I can feel the steady beat of his heart through his chest.
“You feel different,” he says quietly. “Softer. Warmer.”
“Is that bad?”
“No.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “It’s perfect. I just want to stay here a minute and feel it.”
He does. We breathe together while he remains buried inside me, neither of us moving yet. His hand finds the small curve of my stomach again and rests there. The simple weight of his palm makes my throat tighten.
When he finally begins to move, it is in long strokes. He draws back almost all the way before sinking in again, each thrust unhurried and complete. I feel every inch of him. The pace stays steady and deliberate. There is no urgency in it, only attention.
“Look at me,” he says.
I open my eyes. His are already on my face, dark and focused. He keeps the same slow rhythm while he watches me, adjusting the angle slightly when a particular stroke makes my breath catch. His free hand stays splayed over my stomach the entire time.
“I love you,” he says, the words quiet but clear. “I love how you feel right now. I love that I get to be the one inside you while this is happening.”
I reach up and touch his face. My fingers trace the line of his jaw. He turns his head enough to kiss my palm without breaking the rhythm of his hips.
The slow build continues longer than I expect.
Every time I think the need will force him to go faster, he simply deepens the next thrust instead, keeping the same controlled pace.
The pleasure gathers in a low, steady wave rather than a sharp climb.
I can feel myself getting closer in small increments, each one drawn out by the way he refuses to rush.
“Viktor.”
“I know.” His voice has gone rougher, but the movement of his body stays measured. “Stay with me. I want to feel you come like this.”
He shifts the angle again, pressing deeper, and the new pressure pulls a soft sound from my throat.
He answers it with a low sound of his own and keeps going, still unhurried, still fully present.
His hand never leaves my stomach. The combination of his steady thrusts and the protective weight of his palm is what finally pushes me over.
The orgasm moves through me in a long, rolling wave rather than a sudden break. My body tightens around him, and I hold on to his shoulders while it lasts. He follows a few strokes later, burying himself deep and staying there as he comes with a quiet, rough exhale against my neck.
He doesn’t pull out right away. We stay joined while our breathing slows. His hand remains over the small curve of my stomach, thumb brushing back and forth in a slow arc. I can feel the slight tremor in his arms where he is still holding most of his weight off me.
After a long time, he eases out carefully and shifts onto his side, drawing me with him so my back is against his chest. His arm settles around me, hand returning to the same place on my stomach as if it belongs there.
Neither of us speaks for a while. The room is quiet except for the sound of our breathing. I feel the steady rise and fall of his chest against my back and the warm weight of his hand over the place where our baby is growing.
Afterward, he stays wrapped around me longer than usual, one hand still resting over my stomach even as his breathing slows toward sleep, like he’s standing guard over something precious even unconscious.
“That was different,” I say eventually, tracing idle patterns against his chest.
“Good different?”
“The best different.” I tilt my head up to look at him. “I don’t think I knew it was possible to feel this close to someone. Even before tonight. Especially after.”
“I didn’t either.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head, unhurried, the same patience he brought to everything else tonight. “I spent fifteen years convinced closeness like this was a liability. A door I needed to keep locked if I wanted to survive in this business.”
“And now?”
“Now I can’t remember why I ever thought surviving was worth more than this.
” His hand tightens slightly over my stomach, over the small, quiet fact of the life we’ve started building together.
“Whatever it costs me to keep both of you safe, I’ll pay it.
I need you to know that, even if I can’t always tell you exactly what that means yet. ”
I don’t have a full understanding of what he’s actually promising, not with the specifics still locked behind whatever he’s still not telling me, but I believe the shape of it completely, lying here in the dark with his heartbeat slow and steady under my ear.
“I trust you,” I say, and mean it more than I have in weeks. “Even with the parts you’re not telling me yet.”
“You won’t have to wait much longer. I promise you that too.”
I want to ask him what he means, want to push past the vague shape of the promise into whatever specific thing is sitting behind it, but his breathing’s already evening out beside me, sleep pulling him under before I can find the right question to ask.
I settle for watching him instead, the slow rise and fall of his chest, the hand that hasn’t fully let go of my stomach even in sleep, and I let myself believe, just for tonight, that whatever he’s protecting me from will turn out to be smaller than it feels right now.